Memoir of War

11/30/2018 through 12/6/2018 | Northwest Film Forum

World War II, in all its theaters and formulations, is undeniably among the most filmed of cinematic subjects, and yet its portrayal continues at a steady pace. The aim, then, is to find a way to convey some part of this global strife in a way that feels enlivening. With his film Memoir of War, director Emmanuel Finkiel has found one such avenue: via one of French culture’s legends, novelist — and great director in her own right — Marguerite Duras (portrayed here by Mélanie Thierry). The film draws from her 1985 semi-autobiographical work La Douleur, which may or may not have been taken from her own diaries written during the end and immediate aftermath of WWII, and principally chronicles her interactions with multiple factions in Vichy France in an effort to liberate her husband, Resistance member Robert Antelme, from Nazi imprisonment.